Unless a community is infantile and immature or exceedingly naïve the media organizations especially the publishers of tabloids would not have prospered as they appear to have done over the years among the Tamil Diaspora. This is true of the Tamil communities in their new homelands be it Canada, US, UK, France, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Australia.

The LTTE may be wiped out in Sri Lanka but in these countries, the bullying presence of LTTE standard holders is more than evident. Though in total disarray, each one and each group eying to appropriate for themselves the incredible LTTE funds and fortunes squirreled in various places and forms, the community is being held captive to the belief that the Eelam War is still on and in course of time Eelam will be achieved.

This is key to the continuing con that enables to cheat the Tamil community for more funds for the Eelam course. All kinds of novel ideas are being hatched from wanting to build toilets in Wanni to setting up an Eelam government in exile, all of which costs money. Fund collectors also need funds to pay the mortgages for their mansions and other commitments of personal nature.

The most popular idea to fuel anti-Sinhala hatred and give legitimacy to whatever the LTTE did immaterial whether they carried out massacres, enlisted child soldiers or forced young girls into becoming suicide bombers, is to point the fingers at the government to say they committed genocide.

One particular tabloid published in Toronto gives the lie to this con and cheat heaped on the Tamil community and there are people to believe it even if a simple analysis will prove otherwise. This is certainly a terrible reflection on the Tamil community’s inability to discern lies from the truth. This particular tabloid is sufficient proof of the pudding that is the media world of the Tamil Diaspora. This includes the Tamil TV and radio services too.

The issue of Thangatheepam dated June 18-24 published in Scarborough, Ontario carried a lead front page feature titled “Sri Lanka’s race destruction continues” and it follows up inside as a major outburst of utterly false and totally misleading propaganda against the government of Sri Lanka. In the first paragraph it claims that many international organizations in Sri Lanka have pointed out that between May 18 and

June 17, more than 50,000 people were killed. It also accused several countries as parties to this killing in various ways and particularly identified India, China, Russia and even Norway. It was also critical of the co-chair countries.

300,000 people massacred!

But the most serious and extremely ridiculous claim in this feature is that during the last two years 300,000 people have been massacred and heaped up by the Armed Forces of the country. Is it so difficult to understand as to what happened to about 15,000 or more regulars and about 10,000 of the auxiliaries of the LTTE armed cadres? Were they not the ones who got killed during the last two days? It is also known during the last two days of the war all the civilians from the No Fire Zone had escaped with the help of the Armed Forces. Previous to that in two major actions 160,000 civilians had escaped. During these escapes, the medical unit of the Armed Forces did a yeoman service to the civilians.

If the Armed Forces were intent on genocide, the war against the LTTE would have been won long ago. The irony of this mischievous claim is that it is the LTTE and the pro-LTTE Diaspora that badly wanted the Armed Forces to attack the civilians because therein lay the only chance they had to save Prabhakaran. In this some countries in the West and a few international organizations had vested interests. This was exposed beyond any doubt.

Those who are shedding crocodile tears with so much effort are suddenly crying for the fate of the civilians. But where were they when Prabhakaran committed all those deadly crimes even massacres? Where were they when Prabhakaran forcibly took over all the orphanages in the north and brainwashed the children into becoming armed killers? Where were they when children were snatched away from their families and conscripted into the Tiger army? Where were they when 100,000 Muslims were thrown out of Jaffna with hardly 24-hour notice?

Where were they when young girls were forced into becoming suicide bombers? How much do these people know how these girls were initiated into this kind of violence having had them first shorn of what are preciously intimate to them? In fact Prabhakaran was able to do this because of the financial support provided by the Diaspora for whatever he did against our own people in the name of carving out a state where he only and he alone would be the master and none other. The people of Wanni need help; need it urgently. While lorry loads and train loads of food, clothes and other items are flowing towards Wanni from the rest of Sri Lanka even from people who could hardly afford regular meals, it is a shame that the pro-Tamil Diaspora is engaged in conning and cheating the Tamil community.

The aforementioned issue of Thangatheepam has 54 pages out of which over 70% of space are advertisements featuring 137 advertisers. Among them, two full pages have been devoted to visiting astrologers from India who have found this Quaker consultancy extremely remunerative to them. Thangatheepam is one of about 15 tabloid weeklies that clutter up corridors where there are Tamil grocery shops.